Taliban leader reported in Kabul for talks

According to the latest reports, Amir Khan Muttaqi, a senior Taliban leader, is in Kabul for consultations with non-Taliban political officials.

The Associated Press news agency says senior Taliban leader Amir Khan Muttaqi is in the Afghan capital negotiating with Kabul’s political leadership, including former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who once headed the country’s negotiating council.

The agency cited an official familiar with the talks and who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Muttaqi was a higher education minister when the Taliban last ruled and he began making contacts with Afghan political leaders even before Afghan President Ashraf Ghani secretly slipped away from the Presidential Palace on the weekend.

The official says the talks underway in the Afghan capital are aimed at bringing other non-Taliban leaders into the government that Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen has said will be an “inclusive Afghan government”.

Afghans familiar with the talks say some rounds have gone late into the night and have been underway since soon after Ghani’s departure.

Military evacuation flights take off from Kabul

Military flights evacuating diplomats and civilians from Afghanistan started taking off on Tuesday morning, a Western security official at Kabul airport told the Reuters news agency.

The airport runway and tarmac, overrun on Monday by thousands of people desperate to flee from the Afghanistan capital, are now clear of crowds, the official said.

US forces, which are in charge at the airport, had halted the evacuation flights because of the chaos.

UN chief urges countries to accept refugees from Afghanistan

UN chief Antonio Guterres is urging all countries to accept Afghan refugees and refrain from deportations.

The world is watching events in the country “with a heavy heart”, he said on Twitter.

“Afghans have known generations of war & hardship. They deserve our full support.”

Kabul Airport reopened for evacuation operations

Kabul’s airport reopened early Tuesday Afghanistan time after being closed for hours by US forces following a breakdown in security on the tarmac that interrupted evacuation operations, a US general said.

The airport reopened at 1935 GMT Monday, said Major General Hank Taylor, a logistics specialist on the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, NDTV reported.

He said a C-17 transport aircraft had landed with US Marines aboard, and a second one loaded with an army unit was to land soon, to help establish security for the airport.

Taylor said the United States was “in charge of air traffic control” at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) for military and commercial flights.

He added that there were already about 2,500 US troops in Kabul to help organize the evacuation of thousands of Americans and Afghans who worked for them as translators and in other jobs.

By the end of Monday, US time, he said there could be 3,000 to 3,500 on the ground.

“Our focus right now is to maintain security at HKIA, to continue to expedite flight operations while safeguarding Americans and Afghan civilians,” he said.

The airport was shut down Monday after crowds of civilians surged onto the runways, the Pentagon said.

Videos taken from the airport showed hundreds of Afghans flooding onto the runways and trying to impede the takeoff of one of the US transports.

Several people were killed as the US military opened fire on Afghans at the Kabul airport, a source in the security forces told Sputnik on 16 August.

Agence France-Presse reported earlier, citing an eyewitness, that the US military fired warning shots to push crowds back from the runway.

According to the Wall Street Journal, three people have been shot dead in the shootings.

German military transport plane lands in Kabul for evacuation

A German Air Force A400M transport aircraft has landed in Kabul to begin the evacuation of German citizens from Afghanistan, security sources tell the DPA news agency.